Ronnie O’Sullivan became snooker’s £10 million man this week – the first player in the history of the sport to break the milestone for total career prize money.
His 11-9 win over Barry Hawkins to land the Shanghai Masters title for the second year in succession won him a £200,000 top prize at the first event he’s played in this season and in doing so took his total prize money past the eight-figure mark.
Breaking records and doing things on the old green baize that have never been done before is commonplace for snooker’s star attraction, but yet despite all his achievements he has still never ever been nominated for BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award.
Quite how he has been missed after more than two decades at the top of the sport is mystifying.
With more natural talent of any other player and a colourful character to go with, he appears to be a prime candidate for such an award but never seems to get a sniff.
It was perhaps most surprising he was overlooked in 2013 when he won his fifth World Championship title having not played in any other major events in the season. Void of any match practice for a whole year, he turned up at the sport’s top event and took home the trophy. You could argue that if he didn’t win it that year then he never will.
Now tied on 18 Triple Crown events with Stephen Hendry, he maybe has one last shot at it if he can win one more and take the record all on his own.
